Standardise a control for switching diff types from side by side to inline/visual
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	Jdlrobson
	Dec 12 2019, 8:16 PM

Description

User Story

As a visitor to the wikis, when I compare two versions of a page: I want to be able to switch between inline and two-column wikitext diff, so that I can understand what changed.
As a viewer of any Wikitext Diff diff on Desktop, I don't want to see diff-type switching if the engine doesn't support Inline Wikitext Diff

A new inline diff mode is available for diffs alongside the traditional side by side mode - this is the traditional mobile diff view. It should be made available on desktop.

URL: https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Spain&type=revision&diff=400071&oldid=397846&diff-type=inline

Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 12.07.56 PM.png (928×2 px, 197 KB)

A visualdiff mode/control is also provided by VisualEditor

I think this is the code:
https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor/+/1d3386b8ac703e27893821dc6dfc285b73cf0bb4/includes/VisualEditorHooks.php#147

Proposal: We move this control into core and allow extensions to extend it.
By default the control would contain inline and side-by-side

I didn't know about visual diff recently so I had proposed a simple drop down for the control at the bottom of the diff

Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 12.14.52 PM.png (1×2 px, 131 KB)

Screen Shot 2019-12-12 at 12.14.39 PM.png (226×398 px, 13 KB)

Acceptance criteria

When inlinediff or visualdiff mode is not available the control should not show.

Open questions

Designers: Is the ButtonWidget appropriate here or should a dropdown be used (think of mobile screens)?
Designers: If we are using ButtonWidger what should the inline icon be?
Designers: Where to place the control on the diff?
Is diffmode the right parameter or should diff-type be used?
Designers if diffmode is not available and the user requests inline mode should there be some sort of feedback that it's not available?

Details

	Subject	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
	Allow end users to switch between available diffs	mediawiki/core	master	+72 -2

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Resolved		Jdlrobson	T240608 Standardise a control for switching diff types from side by side to inline/visual

Event Timeline

Jdlrobson created this task.Dec 12 2019, 8:16 PM

Change 548936 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jdlrobson; owner: Jdlrobson):
[mediawiki/core@master] Allow end users to switch between available diffs

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/548936

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Dec 12 2019, 8:17 PM

Designers: Is the ButtonWidget appropriate here

The current widget is a ButtonSelectWidget. Usually when we've had issues with these on mobile we've converted them to DropdownWidgets. If we do use a dropdown I don't think a submit button is necessary.

NB we also use this control in the save dialog

Is there any reason not to fold the code in VisualEditor into core and hook into it from VisualEditor?

Jdlrobson mentioned this in T117279: [EPIC] Core should provide inline diffs as well as side by side (Move InlineDifferenceEngine into core / remove MobileDiff).Dec 12 2019, 9:15 PM

Jdlrobson moved this task from Inbox to Next up on the User-Jdlrobson board.

@Jdlrobson what was your intent in tagging TechCom on this? Was the tag just inherited?

Jdlrobson removed a project: TechCom.Dec 18 2019, 10:52 PM

Jdlrobson moved this task from Next up to Needs design on the User-Jdlrobson board.Jan 7 2020, 12:42 AM

Jdlrobson updated the task description. (Show Details)Jan 20 2020, 6:30 PM

• Moushira unsubscribed.Jan 20 2020, 6:50 PM

• Demian awarded a token.Jan 20 2020, 6:59 PM

matmarex mentioned this in T242351: HTML for VisualDiff mode button appears in mobile diff pages (disabled by hack).Jan 29 2020, 9:17 PM

In T240608#5737370, @Jdlrobson wrote:

Is there any reason not to fold the code in VisualEditor into core and hook into it from VisualEditor?

Presumably you could have diff modes even without VE installed.

DanielFriesen unsubscribed.Feb 4 2020, 1:37 AM

daniel moved this task from Inbox to External Code Review Needed on the Platform Team Workboards (Clinic Duty Team) board.Feb 5 2020, 7:34 PM

It seems like there's anything to review by CPT yet. Untagging us, please tag back if code review is needed.

Change 548936 abandoned by Jdlrobson:
[mediawiki/core@master] Allow end users to switch between available diffs

Reason:
Not much bandwidth for this right now, but happy to provide code review for efforts pushing us in that direction.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/548936

• ppelberg moved this task from To Triage to Triaged on the VisualEditor board.Jan 12 2021, 4:17 PM

Milimetric unsubscribed.Jan 12 2021, 7:06 PM

Jdlrobson moved this task from Design to Triaged but Future on the Web-Team-Backlog board.Apr 30 2021, 8:43 PM

Jdlrobson edited projects, added Web-Team-Backlog; removed Web-Team-Backlog (Design).

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Apr 30 2021, 9:10 PM

Jdlrobson edited projects, added Web-Team-Backlog (Tracking); removed Web-Team-Backlog.Jun 25 2021, 7:15 PM

ovasileva moved this task from Incoming to Nice to Have on the Desktop Improvements (Vector 2022) board.Aug 31 2021, 8:46 PM

RhinosF1 subscribed.Sep 7 2021, 4:22 PM

Jdlrobson moved this task from Untriaged to Discuss further on the Web-Team-Backlog (Tracking) board.Sep 21 2021, 8:42 PM

Jdlrobson edited projects, added Web-Team-Backlog (Needs Prioritization (Tech)); removed Web-Team-Backlog (Tracking).Sep 21 2021, 8:52 PM

Jdlrobson moved this task from Backlog to Simplify MobileFrontend on the Web-Team-Backlog (Needs Prioritization (Tech)) board.Sep 22 2021, 2:54 PM

Jdlrobson triaged this task as Low priority.Dec 9 2021, 7:45 PM

Jdlrobson moved this task from Simplify MobileFrontend to Remove mobile Watchlist special page on the Web-Team-Backlog (Needs Prioritization (Tech)) board.

Samwalton9-WMF added a project: Moderator-Tools-Team.May 11 2022, 12:54 PM

Samwalton9-WMF moved this task from Inbox to Diff/Undo on the Moderator-Tools-Team board.

Jdlrobson moved this task from Remove mobile Watchlist special page to Remove mobile diff and history page on the Web-Team-Backlog (Needs Prioritization (Tech)) board.Jun 22 2022, 8:39 PM

ovasileva removed a project: Desktop Improvements (Vector 2022).Sep 15 2022, 10:56 AM

STei-WMF subscribed.Nov 7 2022, 2:44 PM

MusikAnimal added a project: Better-Diffs-2023.Nov 7 2022, 2:52 PM

KSiebert updated the task description. (Show Details)Jan 12 2023, 5:50 PM

KSiebert updated the task description. (Show Details)Jan 17 2023, 6:19 PM

• JMcLeod_WMF added a project: Community-Tech.Feb 21 2023, 4:09 PM

MusikAnimal moved this task from New & TBD Tickets to Following on the Community-Tech board.Jun 21 2023, 2:10 PM

Jdlrobson mentioned this in T336713: Diff-type preference: save diff-type user selection as a preference.Aug 1 2023, 11:51 PM

Izno added a project: MediaWiki-Page-diffs.Sep 15 2023, 8:17 PM

We seem to have an inline diff control now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NERVA&diff=1177674303&useskin=minerva

Will reach out to find which task I can merge this into.

Screenshot 2023-09-28 at 2.26.32 PM.png (66×116 px, 2 KB)

@TheresNoTime @MusikAnimal @HMonroy pinging you as I noticed you worked on this as part of the wishlist (T336716) ?

How difficult would it be to make https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NERVA&diff=1177674303&useskin=minerva default to inline diff and diffonly mode ?

e.g. on Minerva skin, the default would be the equivalent of this page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NERVA&diff=1177674303&useskin=minerva&difftype=inline&diffonly=1

Jdlrobson added a subscriber: HMonroy.Sep 29 2023, 2:45 PM

We seem to have an inline diff control now:

Yes, this was part of the Better-Diffs-2023 project that has more or less wrapped up (we've a few minor bugs still to fix). This task can probably be resolved, unless you want to add the toggle to mobile too? We went out of our way to avoid any changes to Special:MobileDiff, but did not give any special attention to the Minerva skin outside MobileFrontend.

In T240608#9208922, @Jdlrobson wrote:

How difficult would it be to make https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NERVA&diff=1177674303&useskin=minerva default to inline diff and diffonly mode ?

e.g. on Minerva skin, the default would be the equivalent of this page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NERVA&diff=1177674303&useskin=minerva&diff-type=inline&diffonly=1

Totally doable and likely easy, but outside the scope of Better-Diffs-2023. Our team is happy to help with code review, though :)

Side note -- the URL query parameter is diff-type and not difftype (fixed in my quote of your comment). Yes, the dash is weird, but it existed long before the Better Diffs project.

This ticket looks done. I've setup some follow up tickets:
T347780, T117279, T347779

	F37834808: Screenshot 2023-09-28 at 2.26.32 PM.png
	Sep 28 2023, 9:27 PM

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	Dec 12 2019, 8:23 PM

Standardise a control for switching diff types from side by side to inline/visualClosed, ResolvedPublicActions